Siena

Today I learned more about travelling than I ever have in my entire life. Along with three other girls from our Film/Lit group, I decided this Saturday would be the perfect day for a trip to Siena. We thought it would be simple: an hour and a half or so on the train, some wandering in a different Italian city, some dinner and gelato and we could pat ourselves on the back for being experienced world travellers. Cultural legionaires. At least, that's the impression I had. How very wrong was I.

My time in Italy seems to be broken up into two very distinct experiences: the wonderful and the ridiculous. Seeing beautiful architecture, sometimes from 2,000 years ago, sitting by fountains of old emperors and older gods, walking through ancient churches, roads, and port cities: all this is wonderful. Interacting with modern Italian men, getting gypped at the supermarket and then attempting to explain in outraged broken Italian, and being unexpectedly stuck in Siena overnight pretty much all fall into the category of ridiculous.

Let me start by saying that it doesn't take an hour and a half to get to Siena. It takes closer to four hours. And when you leave at 12:45PM, you won't have much of a day trip, that's for sure.

We arrived at Siena around 5PM, ate a much-needed pasta dinner and wandered a bit with Farhanna, visiting the Duomo and Piazza del Campo before she had to head back to the train. Then Mary and Bianca and I decided, in a completely arbitrary order, to do the things we would need to do in order to stay overnight in Siena. We bought emergency clothes and contact lens solution (and shoes for me, since my ankle is now swollen to roughly the size of a melone because of my soccer injury). This endeavor took far longer than it should have before we realized that it would perhaps be wise to look into booking a hotel for the night.

The first two hotels were a bust. The reception at Il Piccolo Hotel de Palio, which looked so promising (read: cheap) because the hotel was only rated 2 stars, was closed by 7:30, although the English sign on the door said they should have been open until 8:30. (The sign in Italian, however, told the truth and informed us after much confusion that reception actually closes at 7:30.) We arrived at eight, nearing desperation and mystified by the cryptic sign on the door directing guests who had already booked their rooms to enter a "secret code" on a keypad next to the entrance in order to get in.

Our second choice was, if I remember correctly, Castel d'Oro, a shady looking venue that you enter through a sidestreet/tunnel awash in green light cast by the sign proclaiming "albergo" at the mouth of the cavelike entrance. Somewhat surpringly, this hotel had no vacancies, but the man at the front desk gave us a map and quite helpfully pointed out where we could find plenty of other hotels.

The third hotel, Hotel Meuble "La Toscana" de Germano Mazzini, right off the tiny Piazza Tolomei, was the charm. We reserved a room for two, assuming the third would be able to walk right up with us anyway under the pretense of "visiting" and thus we would save a couple of euro. The man at reception was named Carmine, who loved Bianca's surname and mine (Neptune and Tesoro, respectively), and asked if either of us sang. When I replied that I did, he asked me to sing him some Celine Dion. He also informed us that he was getting into singing again after thyroid surgery, approved of my tattoo and nose ring, and was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech and John Lennon's "Imagine." Figuring this boded well for us, we decided to stay at La Toscana for the night. Upon leaving, Carmine took our room key back from us, saying that we could pick it up from the desk when we came back later that night. This should have clued us into the somewhat suspicious nature of the hotel, but we had already paid and were itching to see Siena at night, so we paid it no mind.

We wandered through the center again, grabbing a drink at The Dublin Post, where Joann, or Italian culture prof, used to work when she lived in Siena. We explored Piazza del Campo some more, sitting by the Fontana de Gaia (underwhelming after all the fountains in Rome) and enjoyed some Sienese gelato (cioccolate fondente e riso e vaniglia!), and waited in vain for the jazz concert that had been advertised on billboards that we saw on the walk from the train station.

Around 11:30 we decided to call it an early night and get some rest before touring the city in the morning. Unfortunately, Carmine's shift ended at 10PM, after which he was replaced by an evil little troll, who wouldn't even let Mary in to use the bathroom. When she offered to pay for a room just to have a place to stay for the night, he declared that to be impossible since she didn't have her passport on her (neither did Bianca and I when we booked the room, but Carmine let us get away with just using our driver's licenses). Evil Guy seemed content to let Mary sleep alone in a piazza somewhere, even though it was about 20 degrees cooler in Siena than it had been in Rome.

Eventually, Mary stayed with a friend of Joann's - a French guy named Flo (I don't know how to spell his full name) - who, luckily enough, was living in Siena for an internship. We treated him to breakfast this morning - capuccini, cheese and meat platters, and bread - following which he showed us around Siena, taking us to the Duomo, the Museo del'Opera, the mysteriously empty crypt, the baptistry, and - most fantastic of all - a panoramic view of Siena from the top of the museum.

Things I've learned about travelling this weekend:

1. Day trips start early in the morning. Like at 8.
2. Research train AND bus schedules, decide which is best (in this case, taking the bus would have served us better)...and then DO THAT.
3. Make hotel reservations FIRST, and research the hotels so you don't end up with a PREPOSTEROUS TROLL MAN AND CURFEW. The man was actually waiting for us outside the hotel at 2AM sharp, which was when we told him we would return. If Mary hadn't caught up with Flo by then, we would have had to ditch her at Campo to get back to our hotel in time for that asshole.
4. Bring contact lens solution and a change of clothes anyway, so you don't end up spending about 40 euros unnecessarily.
5. And, most importantly, plan yo' shit out. It saves time and money and keeps your blood pressure at safe, healthy levels.